Repainting gauge needles:
It seems almost inevitable to have the dash needles in your Mercedes to turn that hideous yellow color, I suppose I wouldn't mind it that much if they all changed equally but it is obvious that they are simply fading. So what is the cure? Well the only thing short of buying a new cluster would be to try painting it. The only thing you are out is the time as the paint cost a few pennies over $1.

To me this is one of the biggest improvements I've made to my interior so far, I always see the dash so it is great to see it in the right color. Also the orange seems to show up a little bit better under light. Just be careful with that speedometer needle! Another thing to do while having the cluster out is clean off that trip odometer so it is much easier to read! This can be easily done by lightly pushing the reset button and rolling the numbers with the qtip you are using to clean it with. The main odometer isn't so easy to get to however, so it would be quite difficult to clean. While on this subject if your speedometer works but odometer doesn't you can either rough up the shaft under the plastic drive gear or superglue the gear to the shaft. Don't forget to clean the inside of the plastic shield off while you have the gauges out, notice how "scratched" it looks before, and how "new" it looks afterwards?!

A compliment to the needle painting is a page on cleaning the bulbs and prisms so the cluster has better backlighting.

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After:

__________________
Jeff M.
Mercedes W123 DIY pages are now located here.
1983 / 1984 300D Sold
2000 CLK430 Cabriolet ~58k Sold
2005 Avalanche 4x4 ~66k